


Rewards Given

by azurefishnets



Series: Risk and Reward [2]
Category: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 03:27:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21246707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azurefishnets/pseuds/azurefishnets
Summary: It was none of her business but Alma made it hers anyway.





	Rewards Given

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laughingpineapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/gifts).

To her great surprise, Cabanela answered on the first try at his place, but he sounded rather the worse for wear. Almost, Alma hesitated, but she had already chosen once to forego any more waiting for the day. Although she had planned to ask him to come to theirs, she told him they would be over shortly, despite his protests. He sounded in no condition to ride his bicycle, but time was of the essence. He’d gotten away once before. She wouldn’t let him slither away again.

Kamila still slept, so Alma called her usual babysitter and mixed a bottle for later. While she mixed, she could hear Jowd murmuring to the cat again, but this time she minded less. Knowing the mystery was going to be solved sooner rather than later had put her in an odd, floating haze of anticipation. When the babysitter got there, she and Jowd were ready to go. She had a taxi waiting.

The ride over to the Cabanela’s flat was short and quiet, each sitting alone with their own thoughts. Alma looked down at their joined hands on the taxi’s bench seat once or twice. Knowing that they were together in this again was as satisfying as anything else that might happen, although the nerves were beginning to rise. Looking at Jowd, his face unreadable, she wondered if he felt them too. He looked down at her and gave her hand a squeeze.

At last, they pulled up to Cabanela’s opulent apartment building, a tower of black glass and steel that had always slightly intimidated Alma. The doorman, a familiar face before the events of a year ago, allowed them in with a courteous nod for Alma and a supercilious sneer for Jowd’s casual disarray. She and Jowd had long been on the list of VIP visitors to Cabanela’s flat, and considering that, Alma could only wonder how she had not seen this whole situation long ago. The elevator seemed to take an eternity, Alma’s stomach dropping as it rose.

What if she was completely wrong about all this? What if she was about to embarrass their old friend for nothing, and make the whole situation worse? But even in the worries that wanted to rise like the elevator, Alma had to admit there wasn’t much that _could _make the situation worse. Cabanela was leaving. She and Jowd had been unable to talk, not like they used to, not like the old days, for months now. She thought back. The last time they had had a truly wonderful time together had been a day several weeks before Jowd had brought home the kitten, when she, Jowd, and Cabanela had gone to the Chicken Kitchen together. It had been the first time she’d felt safe leaving the baby, and although Cabanela had made many token protests about the choice of dinner, he had been at his most sparkling, scintillant self, lighting Jowd’s black humor and Alma’s secret dark worries about motherhood life effortlessly.

Now that Alma came to think of it, she really had been stunningly careless. He’d taken up residence in her heart without her really even noticing, a presence she had counted on for his boundless joy and optimism long before she had even considered that he might be more to her than merely an old friend. She’d told Jowd that maybe she could learn to love him, but she very much thought she already had. Jowd had said love wasn’t blind, but it certainly had been in her case, and if she had to guess, Jowd was likely much the same.

With a pleasant chime, the elevator achieved Cabanela’s floor and deposited them in the hall. To her surprise, the man himself leaned against his door, hair wildly askew, black shirt undone, a bottle of a very nice vintage in one hand, a glass in the other. He raised the glass to them.

“Theeere they are! The beauuutiful couple, long may they reign…” He squinted owlishly at the glass as he tried to raise it his lips. It was empty. He tossed it over his shoulder, heedless of its breaking, and tipped the bottle straight into his mouth, scrubbing his hand over his face afterwards.

“Cabanela?” Jowd sounded completely dumbfounded. “Seeing you drunk is a rare occasion... ”

“Well, I'm doin' it today, baby. Didn’t you hear? I quit! It’s tiiime to celebrate. A neeew me, nothin' like it…” he staggered, and Jowd reached to catch him. Jowd’s hand landed on his shoulder and Cabanela froze. “Don’t.” He twitched away from it and ended up against the wall.

“Cabanela, you need help.” Alma said gently, attempting to take the bottle. He resisted a little, but it slid from his boneless fingers, bouncing on the floor of the hall. He’d barely drunk half of it, and it splashed and spilled, the red of it oozing viscously through the thick carpeting. Alma felt more than saw Jowd’s gaze be drawn to it and stepped deliberately in front of the puddle as he stiffened. They'd had a few conversations about this new little issue of his, but now wasn't the time. “Let’s get inside and get you cleaned up, OK? Get you a shower, something to eat… some coffee.”

Cabanela scoffed. “I’m spotless, baby, can’t you see? Nary a stain on me. Got nothin’ to hiiide…”

Alma tried the door. It was locked. “Give me your keys, please.”

Cabanela laughed. “Oh, they’re in my coat, baby, along with two bicycle keys and a handful of confetti…” He leaned in to whisper into what he probably thought was her ear. “S’my secret, y’know. Always carry some and it makes every situation a little better.”

“So you’re locked out.” Alma said, ignoring this, her tone flat.

“That’s riiight, baby, out of my job, out of my mind, out of your lives… anyhoot, what’s an apartment key matter to all that?”

Alma caught Jowd’s eye. “I think we’re going to have to take him home. The super’s surely already done for the day.”

Cabanela began to sidle away. “Nah, baby, I’m gonna… gonna go stay at the junkyard. Hear they got a position open for a supervisor. Gonna rebuild everything. Take the trash and make it sparkling clean again…” He wound down, slumping into loose-limbed slackness against the wall.

Jowd heaved a great sigh. “You just can’t help yourself, can you, old friend?” He nodded at Alma. “Your call. What do you want to do?”

“We can’t talk to him like this, and we’re not leaving him,” Alma said firmly. “Let’s get him back down to the reception and you call for another taxi while I see about getting this mess up here cleaned up.”

Twenty minutes later they were on their way, Cabanela slumped and sulky between them in a taxi. Alma wasn’t sure how to proceed, really. He seemed in no condition to have the kind of conversation they needed to have. She’d hoped to make him more comfortable by letting him control the space, but that was no longer an option.

As they pulled up to the house, Jowd paid and tipped the driver and they half-pulled, half-pushed Cabanela up the steps and into the living room. He seemed to be sobering fast, but he still wasn’t helping. Jowd disappeared into the kitchen to pay and dismiss the babysitter and Alma pulled Cabanela into the downstairs washroom. She pointed out toiletries and towels, a set of spare pajamas, as he stared at her with heavy-lidded scorn for her fussing. At last, she finished and stood awkwardly in the doorway. This downstairs bathroom was too small, only holding the bare necessities, and he was forced to stand almost too close.

“Will you be all right?” she asked.

“Oh, you know me, baby, I’ll be fiiine and dandy,” but he still made no move toward the shower, only stared at her with haunted eyes a moment more. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Alma stopped breathing for a moment. The pain in his voice was too lost, too raw. She had made a mistake after all, put this beautiful brilliant man on the path of destruction when she’d meant to free him. “I wanted to help.”

“Help me make a fool of myself in front of my best friends… swell job, baby, mission accomplished.”

“Cabs, please, that wasn’t my intention at all.” Her eyes narrowed. “You didn’t have to drink so much on what I have to assume was an empty stomach either.”

He busied himself with taking off his shirt, undoing the buttons with fastidious fingers. “Wasn’t expecting to see you, baby. And if you’re not expecting to see me in my altogether, you may want to step out before I get in this shower.”

As he’d known it would, that made Alma retreat. She’d prided herself on reading him like a book. She hadn’t quite realized it went the other way around. She went to find Jowd, who was rocking a fussy Kamila and humming her a wordless little tune.

“I guess we’ll get him set up in the guest bedroom for the night, don’t you think?” she said, pulling linens out of the hall closet.

Jowd shot her a pointed look. “You really think he’ll stay if we leave him to his own devices?”

Alma shut her mouth, thought for two seconds, and dropped the linens, hurrying back down the stairs. Sure enough, she got to the living room just in time to hear the front door shut with a nastily final-sounding click. Like a book indeed; she’d entirely misjudged the situation. She rushed for it, and made it outside in time to catch Cabanela making his long-limbed and determined way down the street. She hurried to catch up to him and fell into step. When he looked at her, his eyes were clear, although no less pained. He’d either been less drunk than she’d thought, or he had the metabolism of a bird. On balance, Alma was inclined to suspect both.

“Are you really going to run away from us?” Alma began. “Is out there really better than listening to what we have to say?”

“Maybe not, but I’m not gonna sit there and listen to you two tell me why it’s for the best I stay when I can’t have what you have. This is why I didn’t tell either of you. I’d rather just be flat-out rejected than watch Jowd try to dance around trying to talk to me about this. We both know grace isn’t his strong suit, baby.” He stopped, did his old casual sashay, and flipped his hair back. “This is a Pandora’s box I wish you hadn’t opened, baby, but you did, and now I gotta pay the consequences.”

Alma struggled for the words for a moment as they walked, then stepped in front of him, making him nearly walk into her. Without missing a beat, he began to twirl around, but she took him by the shoulders. She was barefoot, not having expected him to leave, and she had to pull him down a little bit to stare him in the eyes. Awkwardly, she leaned upward and kissed him, a chaste peck on the corner of his mouth. His skin was warm and dry, and his hand, as if involuntarily, came to tangle into her hair.

His breath stopped as his jaw dropped a little, and Alma drew away. “I’m sorry, I do know it’s Jowd that you love,” she said. “But I don’t know how else to make you listen to me. Come back. Let us talk to you, and if rejection’s what you’re expecting you’ll have to be the one to provide it.”

He blinked, dazed, and his hand crept up to touch the corner of his mouth. Alma turned and began to pick her careful way back on her bare feet, but Jowd appeared out of nowhere and swept her up into his arms over her protests. Over his shoulder, he said to Cabanela, “If you’ve got that out of your system, let’s get back to the house. I’ve made coffee.”

“How’d you know we were out here?” Cabanela said, begrudgingly following him. “You were upstairs.”

“Sissel told me.”

Cabanela’s mouth fell open again. “The cat?”

“The one and only. He’s watching Kamila now.”

Alma, resigned to her fate of being carried, leaned around Jowd’s broad shoulder. “Jowd’s about to clear up that other little matter, but only if you come back. He… he trusts you. Don’t betray that trust by leaving him now.” Jowd’s shoulders stiffened, but he kept walking without saying a word.

“Ye gods…” Cabanela scrubbed a hand through his hair. “You know I can’t resist solving a mystery, baby, and this one’s been a plague.” He touched the corner of his mouth again where she’d kissed him, and hurried after them.

They settled in the kitchen, all three of them nursing steaming cups of coffee. Jowd began slowly, but as he began to lean into the story, the words came more facilely, until at last the whole tale came an end. Cabanela had gotten up to pace a quarter of the way through, about the time Jowd dropped the bombshell of what had happened to Alma, and why.

Alma herself sat, eyes full of angry tears. She didn’t know who she was more upset at, in the main. Jowd for leaving their daughter? Cabanela, for hiding himself away from the one she knew he loved the most? Herself for being so useless as to be killed and not be there for either of them? But at the same time, Cabanela had saved Jowd when it mattered the most, and that had ended up saving all of them. When it counted, he had been right on time. She owed him so much more than she could ever say, and she’d repaid that by accusing Cabanela of betraying Jowd’s trust. She hadn’t trusted _him. _A wave of frustrated anger swept over her. The only one here who had been unable to prove her worth or constancy was herself. Getting killed and leaving them all…at least Jowd had come back.

Sissel had wandered in at some point, and jumped on the table. For the first time, he let her scratch his ears and pat him. His fur was cold and smooth, and the pads of his feet and his nose were likewise cold and dry, with no hint of the warmth of a living animal. His eyes, however, were warm and oddly human, golden yellow as he stared at her. If she hadn’t believed before, this was strong proof, but the problem was that Alma _did _believe.

Cabanela had been barraging Jowd with questions, but Alma sat silent. She truly didn’t know what to say. She believed Jowd implicitly, but what did this mean about how they were to go on? She whispered at Sissel, “So we can count on you when things go wrong?” He blinked slowly at her and flipped the tip of his tail. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind that he had agreed.

Cabanela abruptly sat next to her and drew her in, surprising her with a full-armed hug. She could feel his nose in her hair, the warmth and wiry strength of him. “I’m… I’m so sorry, baby,” he said, murmuring into her hair. “I couldn’t keep you safe. I couldn’t…” his body trembled against her. “I failed the people I love most.”

“No, you saved him,” Alma said, thinking perhaps he hadn’t understood. “He couldn’t have done any of...what he did without you and Sissel.”

He drew back from her for a moment. “I think you’re laborin’ under a misconception, baby. Do you think I don’t know that you and Jowd and little Kamila are a package deal? Yeah, maybe I met him first, but you’re no less important to me than he is, and you always have been, since the moment I met you.” His face went fierce. “I don’t know what other me was thinkin’, letting that little Lynne-girl take Kamila. That should have been my job.” He twitched. “I don’t knooow anything about actual babies, though.”

Jowd drew closer, eyes alight with appreciation as he took them in. “You trusted her, Cabanela. You were her mentor, since I was… indisposed.” He frowned. “Actually maybe a little too much. Let her pass her detective’s exam on her own merits this time, huh? She can do it.”

“What?” Cabanela blinked, then laughed. “Whatever you say, baby.” He sobered, looking back and forth to them. “But that brings us to the biiig question. Why bring me into this? You could have just let me go. I understand _you_ might feel some gratitude,” he said, nodding to Jowd, “but, Alma, you get nothing out of this.”

“Do I have to make it clearer how I feel?” said Alma, blushing.

“’Fraid so, baby, guess I just need the validation.”

Alma ducked her head, finding it difficult to meet his merrily-dancing eyes. “I love Jowd. You love Jowd. Shouldn’t Jowd have to tell you what he thinks?” Their heads swung to him and Jowd reddened, just a little, under their combined gaze.

“Is this what we’ve come to? Waiting for each other’s permission?” he quipped. “Flowery speeches and fine words are other people. You people, to be precise. But…” he slowed, becoming more serious. “I didn’t see everything you did for me and not be moved.”

Cabanela’s mouth twisted. “That was some other me, baby, and he’s not here right now. Why _me_? Why _now_?” His emphasis made his meaning very plain. Alma looked from him to Jowd. This was it, the moment of truth. If Jowd didn’t want this, or couldn’t bring himself to give a plain truth to Cabanela’s plain question, then this brief spell they’d woven was over. Cabanela would leave. She and Jowd would go on, but what they could have had would be forever diminished and a light would go out of their lives.

Jowd was quiet for a moment. “That you came from this you. The one that waited for me to see you, and is loyal enough to our friendship right here and now to try to walk away before hurting either one of us. Call it a loyalty kink, if you like.”

“So you have some odd tastes. Still not an answer…old friend.”

Jowd threw back his head and laughed. “You can’t convince me that any of us in this room doesn’t. After all, you two apparently picked me to have feelings about despite every evidence that you were picking up trash in human form.”

“You’re gonna have to get some help for that little deprecation habit you’ve got, baby, I’m not a therapist.” Alma nodded. Some of their most tearing arguments over the last year had come from the exact same ground.

“Maybe so, maybe so.” Jowd rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. “But even so, trash doesn’t get to pick who it loves.”

“Guess that’s what separates you from the trash, then.”

Alma took Jowd’s hand under the table, willing strength into him. She hadn’t been able to help him before, in the old timeline, but he needed what willpower he could glean. He couldn’t sacrifice himself at the altar of everyone else’s well-being anymore, not and be the Jowd she loved. He turned and looked at her once more, a question in his eyes. She nodded infinitesimally. _Go on. Choose._

Tentatively, Jowd stood and reached for Cabanela, waiting for him to jerk away, but Cabanela held his gaze, daring him to follow through. Jowd pulled him up and closer, and Cabanela went willingly, until they were face to face, nose to nose, breathing each other’s breath. Jowd shuddered; Alma squeezed his fingers encouragingly. He nodded to himself and closed the gap, taking Cabanela’s mouth in a kiss.

Cabanela’s eyes flared wide, then squeezed closed. Alma thought that he hadn’t truly believed until it happened that this small miracle ever would. One arm went around Jowd’s neck, holding himself steady as Jowd deepened the kiss. The other lay flat on the table, fingers clenching spasmodically until Alma reached and took it in her own, bringing his long fingers to her mouth and kissing them, whispering soft words she knew from experience of Jowd’s kisses that he wouldn’t be able to hear over the thunderous beating of his own heart.

At last, Jowd tore himself away and pulled Alma in to stand with them, and the three of them wrapped each other in a rocking, clenched hug that held all the promises of ten years, lived twice, and new promises for a new timeline. “There’s my answer,” Jowd told them both. “It’s not what you deserve, but you have my love. And me, if that’s really what you want.”

“And mine,” Alma said, her voice soft. “So… Cabs, will you stay?”

“Baby, you couldn’t tear me away now. You’re stuck with me and all the love in my achin’ heart.”

“Good.” Alma extricated herself from the tangle of arms, smiling. “Then I’m going to bed after I wash these mugs and check on Kamila, and we can figure everything else out tomorrow.” She stretched, and kissed them. This day had been far from what she expected when she’d picked up takeout and gone to beard Cabanela in his lair, but her heart was full and she thought happiness might overwhelm her. There would be more problems, more mysteries, and more misunderstandings, but Alma knew with a sudden burst of clarity that this night was only the beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy ToT 2019 and please enjoy the other half of this double candy bar treat, because I am a ridiculous human being.


End file.
